| Instrument | : | Total Station type TC1 |
| Manufacturer | : | Wild |
| Country of origin | : | Switzerland |
| Manufacturing year | : | 1980 |
I was given this total station in 2009. According to the last owner and based on the manual (this pdf version of the manual is from another TC1 from 1979) the instrument was made around 1980 by the Swiss company Wild Heerbrugg. Wild was founded in Heerbrugg by Colonel Jacob Schmidheiny of Balgach, the geologist Dr. Robert Helbling of Flums and the surveyor Heinrich Wild of Glarus.1 The firm would later become part of the Leica Holding Company in 1990, which still makes high quality surveying instruments as the TCRA1101 total station which I stll use in my profession.2
The colour is not coincidentally the same as the Kern E1 total station. Heinrich Wild designed instruments for Kern & Co after he had severed his connections with his firm Wild Heerbrugg. Later Wild Heerbrugg would acquire a majority interest in Kern and would finally become Leica Holding company on April 2nd, 1990.
The Wild TC1 was developed in 1978 and was one of the first total stations that measured distances through the telescope (or rather around the telescope as the telescope consists of two concentric lenses, the outer one of which was used to measure distances, see fig. 9). It was capable of measuring horizontal and vertical angles as well as slope distances and storing these on a cassette tape which was inserted in a recorder mounted on top of the instrument (see fig. 3). Whereas the Kern E1 basically was an electronic theodolite with a detachable distance meter, the Wild TC1 was a fully integrated total station.
Being an electronic theodolite the TC1 can be used in sexagesimal degrees (360 divisions in a full circle) and gon/grad mode (400 divisions in a full circle) by flipping a switch (see fig. 6). The instrument has a compensator for the vertical scale and has an angular resolution of 3.24" (arc seconds, 0.001 gon) while the standard deviation of an observation in two faces is about 2" (0.0006 gon) horizontally and 3" (0.0010 gon) vertically.
The instrument can transit, but not a full 360 degrees as it is restricted by internal cabling for the distance meter. Sadly enough the instrument stopped functioning properly last year (see fig. 5), so I could not put it to the test. According to the specifications the distance measurements have an accuracy of 0.005m (up to 1400 metres with three prisms ad 8 seconds measuring time) or 0.005 - 0.015mm (up to 2000 metres with three prisms and 15 seconds measuring time). Horizontal and vertical distances can automatically be calculated and are corrected for refraction (k=0.13) and ppm which can be set with a switch on the side of the instrument.
On the scales it reaches a whopping 10 kilograms (14.5 kilograms with the box). The cassette recorder comes in a separate box and adds another few kilograms to it. Compared to this my Leica TCRA1101 total station I use for my work is a lightweight at only 6 kilograms (10kg with the box).
In 1980 the instrument was - together with several others - purchased by DOSbouw (the joint venture that built the Dutch Delta Works in the southern province of Zeeland). They were used for standard land surveying but also served as a back-up for the Minilir/AGA system (see fig. 12) to position the vessels Ostrea, Macoma and Cardium. In order to do the latter the cassette recorder units were modified, replacing the recorder by telemetry (see fig. 11), which allowed the measured data to be received on board of them. The TC1 was also used for an independent position check for the Ostrea. For this dedicated software was written on a HP85 computer that allowed to monitor the vessel in 3D. According the evaluation report the instruments gave little trouble and were popular among the operators due their ease of use.3
After the Delta Works the instruments were passed on to the Survey Department (Meetkundige Dienst) of the Dutch government. Some of them went to the field organizations, while three of them ended up at the Mariene Geodesie department (GAM) where I and the previous owner of the instrument used to work.4 Here the TC1 was used for vessel offset measurements and the submersion of tunnel elements of the Zeeburgertunnel (1987-1989) and Willemspoortunnel (1990-1991, single "s" is the official spelling).
In August 1998 the previous owner was given the instrument when he left the Dutch Survey Department. In his spare time he used it several times to help a rowing club where his son was an active member, setting out the finish line and renovating the shore protection. Last year (2008) the instrument stopped functioning after which he decided to donate it to my collection.
For more information, see the Swiss Wild Heerbrugg virtual archives.
[1]: The Virtual Archive of Wild-Heerbrugg
[2]: WikiPedia
[3]: DOSbouw/RWS, Evaluatie MACOSDOS survey, v 2.1, February 1984, p.55.
[4]: The previous owner started working at the Survey Department straight after the Delta Works were finished, while I entered in 1996 and left in 2000.